1.Front section - IUCN

Urban dwellers and protected areas: natural allies 3
Congress (see below) that it “recruit as members
organizations engaged in urban environmental issues,
and invite prominent leaders and experts in urban
management to participate in the work of IUCN.”
Training leaders
Leadership development is critical. This should
include an international short course for leaders with
high potential, as well as leadership forums in
individual cities. In both cases, participants should
come from urban institutions as well as conservation
organizations. They would learn from local and
international speakers, share experiences, and build
networks of people and institutions.
Assembling a toolkit
A toolkit is needed for practitioners responsible for
linking conservation and urban issues, and for
instructors training those who want to engage in such
activities. Toolkits typically include case studies and
guidelines drawn from them, along with other
material about specific methods.
Cities are particularly suited to international
cooperation because they often have more in common
with each other than with their hinterlands. Cities in
industrialized countries have much to learn from those
in developing countries, as well as vice versa.
Examples of this are India’s Kids for Tigers and South
Africa’s Cape Flats Nature project.
Reaching political leaders
More must be done to reach elected and senior
appointed government officials with the conservation
message. First of all, a better case must be made for
connecting urban dwellers with nature. Those who
decide on budgets increasingly want measurable
objectives against which results can be evaluated.
Students in Costanera Sur Reserve, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Case studies and guidelines are widely accepted
models for international sharing of experience among
conservationists. They are usually very helpful to
practitioners and educators. However, it often helps if
the case studies are written by people who have not
participated in the cases being described, which is
rarely so.
A toolkit for linking urban dwellers to protected
areas, and promoting the larger concept of managing
cities as parts of larger ecosystems, should also include
advice on such methods as collaborative decisionmaking
and use of such technical resources as satellite
imagery and geographic information systems.
Conducting exchanges, study tours, and
technical assistance
Toolkits are useful, but they are not a substitute for
direct sharing of experience through exchanges, study
tours, workshops, and technical assistance. Such
sharing can be among cities within a country or world
region, or by theme or language. An initiative on cities
and conservation in the world’s five Mediterraneantype
ecosystems is already underway (CIPA, 2004).
© Eduardo Haene, Aves Argentinas
47